


Quiet apologies

by InterstellarVagabond, MyKindOfCrazy



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, I still don't know how to tag things properly, Juno Steel - Freeform, M/M, Peter Nureyev - Freeform, Rita is mentioned, jupeter, rated teen for blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 08:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyKindOfCrazy/pseuds/MyKindOfCrazy
Summary: Juno Steel imagined making things up to Nureyev a dozen times during a hundred drunken nights of loneliness, but it turns out things can be so much simpler then he imagined when dealing with the trouble that follows Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev wherever they go.





	Quiet apologies

Maybe Juno should have been a little more believing when Nadir Archer came to his office, trembling and informing him in panicked tones that his property had been stolen by the most ruthless group of black market traders this side of Mars. To be fair, it seemed everything made Nadir nervous, including when Rita opened a soda that had gotten shaken up in her purse on the way to work. Juno had thought that he’d find the valuables with some two-bit burglar and call it a day by lunch. What he did not expect to find was a warehouse full of corpses.

“Damn…” Juno stood up from the third pulse he’d bothered to check thinking that maybe he didn’t have to try for a fourth. “Well this complicates things.”

What complicated them more was the body he noticed as he went to leave. He wouldn’t have paid them any mind at all if it weren’t for the fact that they took a desperate spluttering breath very suddenly as Juno walked by.

“Shit!” Juno got control of his heart attack just in time to recognized the face that was coughing up blood. It was like his heart went from pounding to standing still in seconds as he saw Peter Nureyev looking up at him with glassy eyes. 

“Hey, hey, Nureyev, Peter look at me. Come on, breathe for me.” He fell to his knees, drawing Peter up into his arms, speaking with his voice shaking. Juno had thought he’d never see Peter Nureyev again, and here he was. Juno had left him close to a year ago, but it felt like minutes looking at him. Juno dialed Rita on the comms, and of course she didn’t pick up. He tried again.

“Come on, you’ve gotta live so you can tell me off and be mad at me for being such an asshole.”

Peter was silent at first, and Juno was dismayed to see a small smile spread across his face as he reached up with a blood-stained hand to stroke Juno’s cheek. He must have been delirious judging by the calm, slurred tones of his voice.

“You’re so beautiful, Juno. I’m glad I, I got to see you again.”

It was like a punch to the gut.

“No, stop that.” Juno choked. “Rita where the fuck are you?” He hissed into the comms, getting a dial tone in reply. "Stop sounding like you’re saying goodbye Nureyev I won’t have it.“

"I’d rather say goodbye then just leave.” Peter smiled weakly.

“Okay I deserved that but that’s not the point.”

Despite the joke Juno was starting to panic. There’s a feeling a body gets when the life starts to drain out of it. Juno Steel had the extreme displeasure of being quite familiar with that feeling. The way the person begins to go limp and almost seems lighter in your arms as if shedding off the soul made a person lighter.

He could feel Peter growing lighter.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Peter’s rose from his cheek and went to wipe tears from his eyes, but the thief’s vision was going dark so he missed, and his hand slowly fell. Juno’s comms got Rita’s voicemail again, and Peter was unconscious.

Juno Steel was a lot of things. He was a drunk, occasional pawn in political games, a lady that left without saying goodbye but what he wasn’t was a quitter.

Which is why he lifted Nureyev into his arms, best he could with the man being a good foot or so taller than him, and started running as fast as he could.

By some miracle he made it to the hospital, lungs on fire and arms giving out. Normally, it would take several missing limbs to get the attention of any Hyperion doctor, but Juno had made quite the entrance running in with a pale half-corpse in his arms, covered in blood and trying with empty lungs to scream for help.

“Sir, you can’t come into the operating room,” the nurse tells him as they pull Nureyev onto a gurney and Juno struggles to keep pace with them down the long hallway.

Juno realizes he’s arguing but the nurse argues better, and before he knows it he’s sitting in a waiting room with a dozen crying kids with broken arms and runny noses, filling out paperwork that he can’t be bothered to pay attention to.

A nurse came to ask him his relation to the patient, and Juno thought for half a second before answering.

“He’s my husband, Duke. Duke Rose.”

The doctors keep him updated as the hours pass. They try to ask what happened and Juno tells the truth, he doesn’t know. He just found his husband bleeding out and is so goddamn worried. It occurs to Juno that maybe he should be thinking about what happened. After all, he got hired to find stolen goods and who should he find at the end of the trail but notorious thief Peter Nureyev.

“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Nureyev?” Juno sighed under his breath. And then: “What did you get yourself into, Steel?”

He was grateful he told them Peter was his husband, because when he finally gets out of surgery Juno gets lead right to his room. It’s not a pretty sight with the tubes and beeping machines that make every hospital unsettling but Peter…

He was so pale, almost gray, dark circles under his eyes mirroring dark bruises on his skin. Bound up under a hospital gown, and surely stitched together like a patchwork quilt under that.

“You can press that button if you need a nurse.”

Juno nodded to the attendant, mouth dry. He found a chair by the wall and sat there for a while before dragging it up to the bed and sitting there.

He felt antsy. Faced with a problem he couldn’t solve, a mystery he couldn’t solve either, and a man he’d left in the night… it was a lot to take in all at once. He wanted to hold Peter’s hand, hell he wanted to hold all of Peter but he didn’t think he had the right. What would Nureyev think waking up to Juno clutching his hand like he had any right to?

No, he just sat by the bed until the clock went from ten p.m. to two a.m. and Juno’s head slowly lowered onto the bed where he fell asleep. In the twilight between waking and sleep, his hand reached out and took Peter’s.

Juno was still asleep when Peter woke up, wincing in pain and blinking in the harsh hospital light. Last thing he remembered was pain, and now here was more pain so that tracked at least. The hospital, however, was unexpected and so was the lady sleeping hunched over with his head on the bed and his hand wrapped around one of Peter’s.

Peter went to sit up, and immediately Juno stirred. His eyelids fluttered and he cleared his throat as he sat up. He looked bewildered and grateful, and that was reflected in what he said next: “Thank fuck you’re awake.”

“Thank… fuck indeed,” Nureyev chuckled. “Juno Steel… I thought I dreamt you.”

“More like a nightmare if it was me…” He sighed, and realized he was holding Peter’s hand. He went to pull away but Peter held it tighter. “I uh… I told them we were Duke and Dahlia.” He said quietly.

“Rule one, Juno, never reuse a name,” Peter said softly, but he looked pleased. Juno had no way of knowing, but the reference to their past personas had sparked butterflies in Nureyev’s stomach. He started running his thumb over Juno’s fingers. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome I guess…?” He wanted to say more, but what? All he could do was stare at their entwined fingers. “What happened to you, Nureyev?”

“A deal gone wrong. My employer’s rival showed up at the drop site and decided he rather kill me too than pay me what my late employer had promised,” Peter said. “Honestly, it was embarrassing I even let myself get caught.”

“You need a new job,” Juno said, earning himself a look from Peter. “Yeah okay, we both need new jobs”

“What about you, hm?” Peter asked curiously. “Seems peculiar you happened to find me.”

Juno shrugged. “Luck. I heard a rather shady deal was going down for some things stolen from my client.“

“Ah.” Peter nodded. "Must we always meet like this? On opposite sides of the law?” Peter chuckled and then winced from the movement. Juno watched the pain flash across Peter’s face and clenched his teeth.

It hit him all at once that he’d almost lost Peter before he’d had a chance to beg his forgiveness.

“Look, Nureyev I..” He started to apologize, to address the elephant in the room, but a doctor walked in cutting him off.

And what the doctor had to say made Juno’s blood run cold. Peter wasn’t minutes from death he was seconds. The doctor praised Juno for his timely action but Juno wasn’t really in the mood for compliments. The doctor went on to talk about Peter’s condition, saying medical terms Juno probably wouldn’t understand even if it weren’t for the blood rushing in his ears.

He had a long painful recovery ahead of him and the doctor made a comment about how Dahlia would have to watch his husband very carefully

“Tha-That shouldn’t be an issue.” Juno said, keeping Peter’s hand in a white knuckled grip. Peter seemed to be taking the news a lot better than Juno was. He just smiled calmly, nodding along to the doctor and letting Juno crush the bones in his hands with his anxious grip.

Once the doctor left, Peter smiled sadly at Juno. “It won’t be necessary of course, I can take care of myself.”

“Oh like hell you can. I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.” Juno said without hesitation.

“You already did, Juno. I’ll be fine.” Peter replied softly.

With that painful bit of guilt stabbing him through the chest Juno decided to fall back on an old coping mechanism: sarcasm.

“Well you’ve been away awhile so maybe you haven’t heard about my stunning character development. I’m a new lady.”

Peter laughed, and laughing turned to daggers in his lungs and wheezing coughs. Juno leaned forward and rubbed Peter’s back, his brow furrowing with concern. "Hey, take it easy, I’ll try to stop being so hilarious.”

When Peter recovered he smiled at Juno. “So, tell me about the new and improved Juno Steel then.”

“Well you know…” Juno stammered. “Well uh, he eats breakfast now. And he’s still bad at sleeping enough, but he’s trying. And he talks more about how he feels but he’s still mean about it…”

Juno watched Peter’s smile widen with each little joke and admittance of self-care. "He’s.. He’s more prepared to face the man he’s desperately in love with too. He’s… he wants to apologize.“ He said without looking at Peter, his voice shaking.

"Mm.. Whoever this man is, he’s very lucky.” Peter watched Juno with eyes so full of… something Juno couldn’t identify.

Juno looked back at Peter. “I’d say I’m the lucky one here… I thought you were going to die”

“It takes more than that to kill me,” Peter teased.

“I…” Juno dropped his head to the bed. “I can’t lose you.”

Peter stroked his hair. “You never did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tina and I were throwing ideas back and forth, which turned into dialogue, which turned into proper writing. She added the middle pieces and smoothed it out into a proper fic format and here we are!! She's @interstellarvagabond on tumblr and I'm @jupeterhell or @mykindofcontent :3c I hope you enjoyed <3


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